Transitions

+JMJ+

Trying to write about the transition I am going through is hard for me, because I don’t feel that I completely understand it… I have never thought about transition before, I was always too busy just living it, I think… and I have never been aware of an in-between time.

However, I can say this:  I have always been a person who liked change… I have reinvented myself several times in my life, going from one type of life to another completely different type of life—and I found that very engaging and exciting.  I get bored if I do not have challenges, some kind of big project which completely engages me.  Whenever I feel like I am stuck in a situation that is boring, I simply must create some kind of challenge or new goal for myself, or I get depressed, I think.  Fortunately, I have never lacked for new projects and challenges—I have always been able to either change jobs, move, or create some kind of difficult goal for myself.

The goal I have now, though, is one which is inexhaustible and in which it will be impossible to get bored, because it is one which is almost impossible to achieve: becoming a saint.  Yes: I am so much in love, that I want to be completely one in mind, heart and soul with Christ, that I become a saint.  I seriously doubt that I will, because mere human effort is not enough—but I will die trying—and so I know I will never get bored again.  

During times of transition I think I tend to try to remove all traces of my previous situation so I will not mourn or have to feel any pain.  I like to wipe the slate clean, as it were, and try hard not to think about or remember what I have lost, because it’s important to me to think of myself as tough, resilient, and mature—resolute and brave as I face new situations. 

As much as possible, I throw everything away that was part of the old life, especially photographs, and try to pretend it never existed.  I refuse to live in the past (and I think that is a good thing—I know people who do and they are very unhappy), but in my case, it is more about avoidance of painful emotions than the positive value of living in the present—to be more honest, though, I live more in the future than in the present.  

I just try to forget everything, put it behind me, and focus on the future.  I know I try to rush the process of transition, and I realize now that is NOT a good thing. 

So, as I have been thinking about this for the first time ever, I realize that a year--my Canonical year--is really quite a long time… and anything could happen!  So I have decided to just sink into it, and savor it, instead of focusing on the end--the vows I long to make. 

And today, for the first time, I decided to allow myself to feel a loss just to see what it would be like…. I started thinking about my father while I was in the church this afternoon…. And I realized that I miss him, and that the thought of never seeing him again on this earth really hurts, and seems impossible to accept.  I cried for the first time since he left us, because I know I didn’t do enough to make him understand that at the end, I was not rejecting him—I just had to get away from my mother, because her effect on me was so toxic….and I regret that terribly. I didn’t want to feel this, but now I do. And for some reason, this made me start wondering how Jesus felt when Joseph died!  Anyway, I feel like I am reclaiming the humanity I lost because of my mother’s terrible influence. 

Embracing Suffering

+JMJ+

I am sure that all people who reach a certain spiritual level, come to this understanding of human suffering--but amazingly, despite my advanced age, I am only just now realizing this:  God allows everyone to have a certain amount of suffering--and to reach His Kingdom, we must willingly embrace it, if we wish to be perfect.  Not conquer it, but embrace it, just as Jesus embraced his suffering on the Cross. 

 

For some, it might be a life of material poverty.  For others, it is physical illness or some kind of disability, or a person who never finds their soulmate and maintains a life of chastity despite their own deep desires. Perhaps it's the loss of someone that a person loved so much, life seems unbearable without them. It could be the misfortune of being born in a country which has great economic or civil strife, such that they experience the stress and uncertainty of immigration or becoming a refugee, leaving behind a homeland that should have been their safe haven. 

 

It doesn't matter what it is:  there are a million varieties of human suffering, but all have one thing in common: if you are so much in love with God that you wish to be perfect, then "deny yourself, take up your Cross and follow Me." (Matthew 16:24-26) 

 

Understanding this--at last!--has been an incredible liberation for me, because it explains and justifies what is wrong with this world: it's the one thing that makes everything else make sense.  All my life, I have felt guilty (for example), that I am not poor... that I am not disabled... that I live in the United States instead of somewhere else--and I am freed of that guilt now!  They have their suffering, and I have mine: and it is all according to His plan.  Nevertheless, this knowledge does not absolve us from doing everything we can to relieve suffering wherever we find it!

 

The challenge, of course, is the embracing part, because it's human nature to want to avoid suffering.  And so, most of us spend a great portion of our lives struggling to escape from our suffering, not realizing that the only true freedom comes with acceptance, with offering our suffering to God in union with Jesus Christ.  This is a mystical concept that not everyone "gets," but I am absolutely convinced that it is true.